Fonterion predicts more emphasis on onshoring

International consulting firm for outsourced legal services has come out with its top 10 list of predictions for LPO domain.

The report emphasize on the already known facts like LPO to be the answer to all cost effective questions and technology being the USP of the offshoring proposition. However, the new facets that have emerged from this report are the ones which I think would govern the next year. For example the shift in focus to onshore delivery centers. The recent acquisition by Thomson Reuters of Pangea3 is one such example which can pave the way for further similar kind of developments. Another noteworthy finding is the increasing public acknowledgement. It is the acceptance that will propel growth for the entire industry.

To read full report, please click on the link. For a brief synopsis read …

How will 2011 spell out for LPO business?

The LPO Program today released its forecast of the 2011 LPO market showing high growth in all areas of the legal community. The main user of LPO continues to be Corporate Law Departments, who are forecast to add $129m of spending in 2011. Law firms are shaking off traditional caution and are fuelling 41% of the projected growth. On these forecasts, it is expected that at least 9 high profile deals will be announced by law firms in the next 12 months.

Read more . . .

UnitedLex Strengthens Market Position with Strategic Acquisition of LawScribe

UnitedLex, a global full service provider of technology powered legal & business solutions, announced that it has successfully completed the acquisition of LawScribe. With LawScribe's deep domain capabilities and tradition of thought leadership, UnitedLex will expand its insight and applications to reduce costs and solve complex legal & business challenges."UnitedLex's industry leading technology and long standing commitment to multi-shore delivery made our decision to join them an easy one," said Kunoor Chopra, President and CEO of LawScribe.

Corporate clients embrace outsourcing

A by-lined article from Leah Cooper discusses how the legal profession is on the cusp of unprecedented change, and that LSO (and CPA Global in particular) is at the forefront of that change. The piece highlights growth in new business (including our ongoing discussions with Australian law firm Blake Dawson), how LSO is attracting interest from outside investors as well as high-level legal professionals who see the sector as an exciting career alternative, and the results of recent market research on the perceptions of LSO, commissioned by CPA Global.

Read more . . .

Boon time for Indian lawyers

A special feature on aggressive hiring trends in LPO sector, entitled 'LPOs catch Indian lawyers' appeared in The Financial Express. This industry trend piece talks in detail about Indian lawyers and path breaking growth planned by the industry.

LPO in India is looking forward in expanding its presence in the outsourcing sector owing to which big names like CPA Global, United Lex, and Infosys are into major hiring spree especially for the lawyers. This development does not alone mean profit for the business but is also a boon time for law graduates and lawyers. They now have an option to skip the drudgery and hardship, which they earlier spent at courts practicing, move directly to an LPO company and get the benefits of corporate culture.

The article elaborates recent LPO expansion by quoting Anand Sharma, CFO and Head of Management Services at CPA Global, “We will hire 400 lawyers in India by the end of this year. Our global headcount will be 7500 in five years. We expect 75% of it to be in India,” says Anand Sharma, CFO and head, management services at CPA Global. The company’s 40% hiring would constitute laterals with 12-15 years experience and the remaining 60% would be freshers.”

Read more . . .

Will Philippines challenge India as the next LPO destination?

Infosys recent announcement of expanding its legal outsourcing operations to Manila have made many question about cost effectiveness of this new destination. Philippines like India have a legal system that is similar to US. Also its talent pool is English speaking and is offering its services at a pittance when compared with US lawyers. So does this mean that LPO industry in India is under threat?

India LPO domain has now reached a point where they have established a strong hold not only in terms of doing quality work but also in improvising the process of doing it. Certification such as ISO 9001:2008 testify the quality while the increasing level of complexity of work meted out to some of the LPO units talk about the skill workforce present in India. Though Philippines has a similar law infrastructure India on the other hand has a huge talent pool which is already on its path of growing the LPO sector.

Thomson Reuters has acquired one of India’s largest pure play LPO companies Pangea3

The acquisition price would be in the range of $35 to 40m (Rs 157 to 200 crore) as reported by Business Standard and citing unnamed sources.

The deal was announced by Thomson Reuters but did not disclose a deal value. Its legal division’s president and chief executive officer said in a press release that legal outsourcing added a vital strategic complement to the company’s portfolio of “specialised information and workflow solutions”, and would be the key to helping law firms and corporate legal departments be more “responsive and cost-effective”.
"Pangea3 is true to our mission to help the legal system perform better, every day, worldwide; we will now bring to the legal marketplace a responsive, high-quality, transformative resource for a broad range of legal support work,” he added in the statement.

Pangea3 declined to comment. Pangea3 and Thomson Reuters told Business Standard that they did not comment on speculation although neither denied the news.

Full article at http://www.legallyindia.com/201011181531/Legal-Process-Outsourcing-LPO/breaking-thomson-reuters-to-acquire-lpo-pangea3-for-up-to-40m-strategic-buy

Survey on the LPO industry

Hello readers,

The LPO industry, as you all are aware, has in recent times seen a lot of changes in the mindset as well as the work done by it. Ravi Shankar, Harvard Law graduate, is administering a survey to study business fundamentals of the LPO industry in India at large. The questionnaire is addressed to operational managers in the Indian. If you are interested please contact Ravi Shankar at rshankar@jd10.law.harvard.edu .

Have a nice day.

Guest article:Why Outsourcing E-discovery should be part of your business strategy

Outsourcing e-discovery and information management services is no longer something businesses can ignore. E-discovery and information management services are rapidly becoming critical, highly-discussed topics in board meetings across the globe. Developing a strategy for outsourcing them is a key to the success of today’s modern, Internet-enabled enterprises.

As the world begins to see more and more bogus tort claims, frivolous lawsuits, and increasing amounts of civil litigation in general, the process of discovery, or the process of obtaining documents, interrogations, and other evidence from opposing parties before trial, during such litigation proceedings becomes increasingly cumbersome and costly to obtain. The discovery process was difficult to begin with before the Internet-era; but now with the introduction of massive amounts of computer-based data such as emails, instant messages, and other intangible data stored in electronic format the discovery process becomes even more difficult to complete. This new form of discovery, known as e-discovery, is not just more complicated than its traditional predecessor due to the existence of larger amounts of data in formats far less tangible than paper.

The e-discovery process is further hindered due to a larger array of personnel involved in the process of discovering relevant, electronically-based data. Lawyers and forensic investigators, who are unfamiliar with the technological aspects of creating, maintaining, preserving, and deleting electronically-based data, must cooperate during the e-discovery process with IT professionals (IT managers, database administrators, network administrators, etc.), all of whom are generally unfamiliar with the law. This clash often results in delays, misunderstandings, or, even worse, data corruption or even outright data loss.

The tasks of managing a company’s data and, in the event civil litigation arises, e-discovery are peripheral tasks not directly related the company’s core goals. Just like the duties involved with payroll processing have been successfully delegated to outside specialist firms, outsourcing e-discovery and information management services are gradually taking hold amongst businesses worldwide. Despite fears from the opposition, outsourcing these tasks is proven to be efficient, cost-effective, and safe.

Firms specializing in e-discovery outsourcing have professional staff trained in tasks specific to the discovery process and how it is conducted in today’s electronic document era. Outsourcing these tasks frees corporate attorneys from these burdens so that they can focus on tasks more suited to them. Instead of wasting time on the “grunt work” of ploughing through boxes of digital tape backups or data mining through hundreds of gigabytes of archived receipts, attorneys can focus more on clients and business development efforts.

When a corporation’s legal department teams up with an e-discovery outsourcing company located in another country, the potential to speed up the process and meet previously impossible deadlines increases dramatically, as attorneys can take advantage of time differences between their offices and that of the outsourcing company in order to continuously work on a project non-stop, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Outsourcing e-discovery helps prevent companies from getting “overcharged and overlawyered” by unscrupulous attorneys and con artists alike who prey upon management fears that pursuing a proper legal defence will always be more expensive than a settlement. With outsourcing e-discovery becoming a viable, cost-efficient alternative to expensive settlements, companies can re-invest the money otherwise lost on these settlements into pursuing their core goals. This is a win-win situation for the company, their customers, and their containing economies as well.

Outsourcing information management services benefits a company in similar and complementary ways, in the sense that an outsource firm specializing in information management can not only increase efficiency in handling a firm’s data, but will help said firm’s attorneys be more effective with retrieving and processing discoverable electronic data.

Opponents to such outsourcing claim it is unprofessional and unethical to allow so-called “non-lawyers” to practice law. They claim that outsourcing dilutes the quality of discoverable documents as the task of document identification, preservation, and collection are not conducted by a company’s own legal staff. Such claims are simply untrue. Allowing an outsourcing company to handle specific tasks under guidance is no different in this respect than hiring paralegals or law student apprentices. It has even been ruled that outsourcing is acceptable as long as an attorney properly supervises their work. As with anything that an attorney must delegate to others, he or she must take caution and maintain an awareness for issues relating e-document custody and control, privilege and confidentiality of e-documents, e-document security, and other various legal and ethical considerations.

Regardless of the opposition, outsourcing of e-discovery and information management services is becoming increasingly popular. As it becomes more and more difficult to compete against one’s competitors, finding a way to increase efficiency and reduce costs anyway possible is a goal that is here to stay. Outsourcing tasks that are not directly related to an enterprise’s core pursuits has proven effective for decades in matters such as payroll processing, supply chain management, and even IT matters. The “Electronic Revolution” has not only allowed this to happen but has encouraged its growth amongst companies in every industry imaginable. It’s not hard to see it was only a matter of time before outsourcing arrived in the legal department.

Steven Rosen is a freelance writer and blogger for Ledjit Consulting, a Montreal-based e-discovery and information management consulting firm.

Time to open your eyes to legal outsourcing

Russell Smith in his article “ The Toothpaste is out of the tube” shares his own experience regarding the legal out sourcing industry in India. He in his article not only brings forth the benefits accrued by the Western clients but also demythifies the statement that legal outsourcing is taking away the jobs of the UK and US lawyers. He brings forth the fact that by outsourcing litigation work many legal cases have been dismissed at the court of law rather than being settled. This according to him has happened only “because of the successful teamwork among attorneys in US and in India”. He uses the term “benign tort reform” to address the phenomenon wherein “defendants facing bogus or inflated tort claims are choosing to litigate and win.” This has been possible only from the existence of legal outsourcing firms in countries such as India and Philippines which has led to the usage of money, otherwise being given for payouts, to go back to the U.S. economy.

Legal outsourcing industry cannot be ignored now. It’s here to stay. The question is not on its existence but on the existence of those who don’t embrace it.

India knocking the Western legal market

In this brilliantly written article the author explores the Western side of the world with respect to global legal services outsourcing industry. The lawyers from US and UK lawyers are now showing ardent desire to work with Indian legal outsourcing companies. It’s the opportunity to manage big teams and built business that is giving them a rush.

Not only big corporations but also law firms such as Clifford Chance have now realized the benefits of outsourcing the routine legal work to destinations like India, Philippines and now Israel. Law firms in India to attract Western clients are hiring experienced lawyers from US & UK so that adherence to quality and understanding of the client requirements can be done in a better way.

It’s just a matter of time when there is going to be an exodus of Western lawyers to Indian legal outsourcing business and industry pundits have already started seeing the signs of it happening.

Integreon signs a breakthrough deal

Integreon has signed a 10-year US$852 million outsourcing agreement with CMS Cameron McKenna. The transaction covers accounting, human resources, marketing, training and IT. This deal is one of the biggest deals that have come after the Rio Tinto–CPA Global partnership. Such developments mark the growth of the legal outsourcing domain as well as receptivity of corporations and law firms to the idea of outsourcing legal work.

Press Release: CPA Global one of biggest climbers in Global Outsourcing 100 - Continues to achieve highest position of any pure-play

CPA Global has achieved the highest position of any pure-play legal services outsourcing provider* in the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals’ (IAOP) Global Outsourcing 100 for the second year running.

CPA Global was also one of the fastest climbers in the prestigious top 100 listing - which covers the leading players in all disciplines of outsourcing, including the largest IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) companies. Amongst this diverse group, CPA Global rose to 42nd place this year from 60th in 2009.

Companies selected for the Global Outsourcing 100 are included and ranked based on quality following a rigorously judged application process that examines multiple criteria. They are assessed on four critical characteristics: size and growth, customer references, organisational competencies, and management capabilities.

Leah Cooper, CPA Global’s Head of Legal Services Outsourcing, said: “LSO is growing rapidly and bringing significant change to the legal services sector. Our impressive rise up the IAOP rankings reinforces CPA Global’s leadership position as well as increasing industry appreciation of the benefits of LSO. I am delighted by our strong showing in this important listing as it reflects positively on the quality of service we provide and our levels of customer satisfaction.”

Michael Corbett, chairman of the Global Outsourcing 100 judges panel, commented: “Being named in the Global Outsourcing 100 is a great achievement, particularly given the strong competition from such a diverse range of outsourcing providers in both well established and newly emerging sectors. CPA Global should be proud of gaining recognition of their excellence in outsourcing, and being one of the biggest climbers this year.”

CPA Global was also identified in the 2010 Global Outsourcing 100 list as one of the top ten providers to the pharmaceutical sector and one of the top 20 providers to the technology sector.

CPA Global’s inclusion in the IAOP rankings follows its success in the Brown & Wilson Group Black Book of Outsourcing in 2009, where it achieved more first place ‘quality’ rankings than any other LSO provider, including client relationships, outsourcing implementation, scalability and adaptability, and ‘marginal value adds’, which rates how well predicted cost savings are delivered. CPA Global was also recognised last year by the UK’s National Outsourcing Association for its innovative work with Rio Tinto, saving the mining company more than 20% of its legal spend.

Note: * CPA Global defines ‘pure-play legal services outsourcing provider’ as a company whose sole outsourcing focus is in legal services rather than more general IT and business process outsourcing, etc.


Media Contacts

CPA Global
UK: Steve Clark +44 (0)1784 224 351, sclark@cpaglobal.com
Rob Coveney +44 (0)1784 224 557, rcoveney@cpaglobal.com
US: Julie Mandell +1 (571) 227-7025, jmandell@cpaglobal.com


IAOP
Kimberly Maneeley +1.845.452.0600, ext. 104,
kim.maneeley@outsourcingprofessional.org

About CPA Global
CPA Global is the world's leading provider of legal services outsourcing, including document review, transaction support, contract solutions, legal research, and intellectual property (IP). With offices across Europe, the United States, Asia and the Pacific, CPA Global supports many of the world’s best known corporations and law firms with a diverse set of legal and IP specific requirements, helping them to realise value by managing risk, cost and capacity.

Founded in Jersey, Channel Islands in 1969, CPA Global today employs around 1,500 people in 15 offices in ten countries, serving clients’ needs in over 100 countries. CPA Global has offices in key city locations such as London, Paris, Munich, Washington DC, Sydney, Hong Kong and New Delhi; and has strategic partnerships covering a number of other important markets, including Japan and Korea. The company has extensive operations in India, with some 650 people in two state-of-the-art legal services delivery centres in the Noida and Gurgaon districts of Delhi. The company's focus on quality and security in its Indian legal services outsourcing business is underlined by its certifications in ISO 9001 for operational quality and ISO27001 for IT security.

For further information visit: www.cpaglobal.com

About IAOP
The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals® (IAOP®) is the global, standard-setting organisation and advocate for the outsourcing profession. With more than 100,000 members and affiliates worldwide, IAOP helps companies increase their outsourcing success rate, improve their outsourcing ROI, and expand the opportunities for outsourcing across their businesses. To learn more, visit www.outsourcingprofessional.org.

About The Global Outsourcing 100
The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals® (IAOP®) is in its fifth year of compiling its annual ranking of the world’s best outsourcing service providers and advisors – The Global Outsourcing 100.
The Global Outsourcing 100 and its sub-lists are essential references for companies seeking new and expanded relationships with the best companies in the industry. The lists include companies from around the world that provide the full spectrum of outsourcing services — not just information technology and business process outsourcing, but also facility services, real estate and capital asset management, manufacturing and logistics. They include not only today’s leaders, but tomorrow’s rising stars.

LPO Company achieves one more milestone for its client

SDD Global Solutions, the India arm of Channel 4’s U.S. counsel, SmithDehn LLP, achieved a major feat by defeating a libel case involving a plaintiff who sought $800,000 dollars in damages, all allegedly due to the inclusion of her name in a comedy routine. Sanjay Bhatia, SDD Global’s Head of Operations, commented that “this is a case where outsourcing created more work in the US, rather than less. Because our team made the defense affordable, US lawyers were able to do the things in the US that they do best there, such as strategizing, supervising, editing, and appearing in court. The implications of this case are huge. With legal outsourcing, baseless lawsuits can be defeated on their merits, instead of settled simply out of fear of legal fees.” Read more to know about the case and how SDD Global provided strategic support in bringing forth a cost effective and innovative win for Channel 4.

BT signs new deal to outsource work to UnitedLex

UnitedLex team will handle commercial contracting and antitrust regulation work for BT's offices in the UK, the US, India, Singapore and Hong Kong. The team will be based in Gurgaon, India.

BT Global Services general counsel David Eveleigh said: "Our existing Gurgaon-based in-house team delivering legal support services has performed extremely well, but the time is right for us to transition the work and our people to an established legal process outsourcer, which can offer industry best practices and provide global scalability."

Read more to know the details of the deal.

Legal service outsourcing - The next 'it' thing

In an amazingly well written article in Law Gazette, James Dean tries to break the myth surrounding the working conditions in LPO companies and present the real picture of growth, dynamic work culture and synchronisation of technology and skill expertise.

James takes the reader through his journey of one of the best legal service outsourcing units - CPA Global - and puts forth the point of view of its people. Read more to know the pace of growth of the legal outsourcing industry, expansion plans of CPA Global and how people especially lawyers have embraced this industry.

Lawyers soon to become expert project managers

In an article, which appeared in Hilderbrandt, a very interesting question was put forth before the readers. The question is related to the current discussions on having alternative pricing, which is now challenging the billable hour. The author in an attempt to go to the root cause of the problem, which is to understand COSTS, enters in the labyrinth of questions. The most basic one being that what has led to doubling of costs by the lawyers in recent few years. “Is it because there was an added complication one time or was the job just poorly managed? If it’s the latter, is it possible to make someone (a lawyer) a good project manager?”

Lawyers have no doubt in recent years have understood the mechanics of globalization and economics. They have also understood that budgetary issues now no more surface in the job description of financial experts alone. It is now the time to get into legal project management as well. This is one area where niche legal services outsourcing firms can provide the much needed exposure and experience. The huge ambit of work dealt by such firms gives the lawyers working their opportunities to learn and execute different principles of legal project management. There are multiple success stories in such companies where an individual who joined in as a legal analyst have in short span of time and owing to challenging nature of work has become a leader of big teams of lawyers and paralegals.

Gradually the mindset regarding LPO units is changing among the masses. They now comprehend the multi-dimensionality of work done in big LPO companies such as CPA Global and are eager to carve their career in such organizations.

Press Release: Intermediate Capital Group acquires significant stake in CPA Global

Legal services firm set for strong growth as outsourcing sector takes off

Intermediate Capital Group (“ICG”), a leading independent investor and fund manager, announces that it has acquired a significant minority stake in legal services firm CPA Global, investing alongside the company’s senior management team and the founding shareholders.

The acquisition has received the required approvals from CPA Global shareholders as well as the Jersey courts, which sanctioned a new Scheme of Arrangement that came into effect today. The terms of the transaction are not disclosed.

Founded in Jersey in 1969, originally to manage patent renewals, CPA Global has expanded over the years to become a multinational company that is the clear market leader in the global intellectual property (IP) services market and one of the world's leading providers of broader legal services outsourcing, including litigation support, document review and contract management. The legal services outsourcing sector is expected to grow rapidly over the next few years, with estimates of the potential market value in the tens of billions of dollars.

CPA Global’s Chief Executive Officer, Peter Sewell, said: “This is a very exciting time for CPA Global and everyone involved in the company. It represents the next stage in our evolution from an IP partnership handling patent renewals into a global leader in IP and legal services outsourcing. Our growth prospects in the years ahead are the strongest we’ve ever seen as we continue to develop our IP services and software businesses with an expanded range of products and services, while aggressively pursuing our diversification into the wider legal services sector. This sector is really taking off as corporate clients are increasingly turning to outsourcing providers for alternative, more cost effective ways of managing their legal work. CPA Global is already recognised as a pacesetter in legal outsourcing, working with many major international corporations around the world, and, with ICG’s backing and support, we will be even better positioned to take advantage of the opportunities ahead.”
Piers Millar, Head of ICG Minority Partners, said: “Peter and the management team have built a fantastic business over the past decade gaining market share and developing new business areas. We believe CPA Global has a very exciting future and we are really delighted to be supporting them in their ongoing development.”
CPA Global was advised by BDO Corporate Finance. ICG was advised by HSBC and Close Brothers.

For further information, please contact:
CPA Global
Steve Clark +44 (0)20 7549 0679, sclark@cpaglobal.com
Rob Coveney +44 (0)20 7549 5505, rcoveney@cpaglobal.com
ICG
Media
Amanda Fong +44 (0) 20 7448 4156, amanda.fong@icgplc.com
Analyst / Investor enquiries
Jean-Christophe Rey +44 (0) 20 7448 5876, jc.rey@icgplc.com
M: Communications:
Charlotte Kirkham or Tim Draper, M: Communications, +44 (0) 20 7920 2331, kirkham@mcomgroup.com, draper@mcomgroup.com

Further information on the companies:
About CPA Global
CPA Global is one of the world's leading providers of legal services outsourcing, including litigation support, document review, contract management, and intellectual property (IP) management and software services. With offices across Europe, the United States, Asia and the Pacific, CPA Global supports many of the world's best known corporations and law firms with a diverse set of legal and IP specific requirements.
Founded in Jersey, Channel Islands in 1969, CPA Global today employs more than 1,300 people in 15 offices in ten countries, including key city locations such as London, Paris, Munich, Washington DC, Sydney, Hong Kong and New Delhi; and has strategic partnerships covering a number of other important markets, including Japan and Korea. The company has a large and diverse list of clients: from major global corporations to small and medium-sized enterprises and innovation start-ups; and from the top international law firms to national and regional law and IP firms. Clients include leading Fortune 500 and FTSE companies, and two-thirds of the Global Lawyer 100.
CPA Global provides management services for its clients’ valuable IP Rights, such as patents, designs and trademarks, helping ensure that IP portfolios are protected, maintained and regularly reviewed in order to maximise value. Through its successful diversification strategy, the company has also established itself as a leader in the growing market for broader outsourced legal services, helping law firms and corporations to realise value by managing risk, cost and capacity on their behalf.
Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) is changing the legal services landscape and CPA Global is at the forefront of that change. In June 2009, CPA Global announced a landmark deal to supply outsourced legal services to global mining company Rio Tinto – a deal that was heralded by The Times as ‘ground-breaking’ and which attracted worldwide media coverage as well as the keen attention of the legal profession and international business community. CPA Global has firmly established itself as a leader in this sector, signing deals with a number of major international corporations; and investing heavily in building the business with two state-of-the-art facilities in New Delhi, now employing around 600 highly skilled staff, and three onshore delivery centres in the US.
CPA Global’s leadership position is underlined by its ranking as the world’s top intellectual property outsourcing provider and its second place overall for core legal services outsourcing in the Brown-Wilson Group’s Black Book of Outsourcing 2009. CPA Global also achieved more first place ‘quality’ ratings in this prestigious industry survey than any other provider. This follows CPA Global’s success in the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals 2009 Global Outsourcing 100 list, in which it achieved the highest position of any pure-play legal services outsourcing provider. For more information, visit: www.cpaglobal.com
About ICG
Founded in 1989 Intermediate Capital Group PLC (“ICG”) is a leading independent investor in and manager of mezzanine finance, minority equity and related assets with approximately £10 billion under management in proprietary capital and third party funds. ICG has a large and experienced investment team of investment executives operating from its head office in London and offices in Paris, Madrid, Stockholm, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Sydney and New York. Its stock (ticker symbol: ICP) is listed on the London Stock Exchange. Further information is available at: www.icgplc.com.

CPA Global achieves another milestone

In a new rating model developed by ValueNotes, CPA Global has been recognized as a ‘pacesetter’ in legal services outsourcing industry.

The ValueNotes Sourcing Prism rates LPO providers in three areas: service maturity, sustainability and strategic intent. CPA Global was at the top position in all these categories.

Read more to know about the rating model and what made CPA Global get the top position amongst all the LPO players.

Legal Services outsourcing: Now mandatory to know

In an article, which appeared in Financial Director, various facets of the emerging LPO business came forth.

The first major finding has been that the law firms have been quick in taking services provided by LPO companies rather than big businesses. However, the last year deal between CPA Global and mining giant, Rio Tinto, seems to herald a new chapter in the way legal outsourcing services are viewed.

The second big point is about cost saving. I have repeatedly mentioned in my articles that although cost saving is the major attraction, it is the Quality of the work which scores a point. “Cost is not the only cause of the renaissance in legal outsourcing; more clients are beginning to realize there are also opportunities to improve process efficiency and transparency, while still maintaining exemplary standards of quality and security” Rob Stichbury, CPA Global’s Director of Business Development.

It’s not only the client who needs to check the credentials as well as service provided by LPO companies, but also the service providers who need to know that process improvement, innovation, data security and consistent and strict adherence to Quality standards is what would help them in the present scenario of mushrooming LPO units.

Financial gains underlie LPO work

Pricewaterhouse Coopers in its study has analyzed in detail the growth of LPO industry. They have found that legal services outsourcing provides the highest cost savings of 44% in comparison to other markets. The research also revealed that LPO services realise the highest profit margin for providers, with an average margin of 29%, ahead of IT (24%), finance and accounting (21%) and procurement (19%).

All these figures are indicative of the fact that legal outsourcing is the best avenue to provide cost saving, which in the present state of economic slowdown is the most coveted prize. The research also highlights the expansion plans of LPO service providers that points the increase in business meted out to them.